If you are scaling at pace but don't have a reliable way to find talent, the speed of your growth can be hard hit. This was the challenge Derivco faced, as a 25 + year old leading dev tech house with an ambitious growth plan that required a stream of high-end tech teams locally and globally. Here’s how OfferZen helped them scale their team in South Africa, hiring over 45 developers to date and saving substantial agency fees to boot.
Derivco is a software development house holding a global leading position in the igaming space having invented many of the systems that the industry is based on. Here’s how OfferZen helped them in their mission to build a world-class tech team.
Simplified sourcing with access to a unique pool of developer talent
As part of their ongoing growth plans and invention focus, the team at Derivco are constantly on the lookout for the best of class tech experts to join the business across South Africa, and globally — and needed a reliable method of sourcing talent.
However, finding volume and the right level is always challenging, and partnering with OfferZen has added an extra element to the current recruitment strategy:
“We want to be as innovative as we can be in the market, since technical talent is a premium — you need to approach sourcing from many angles using many methods and platforms to identify talent of this caliber, OfferZen gives us this outlet,” says James Martin, Talent Acquisition Lead.
“Using OfferZen's wider candidate pool has added extreme value to our sourcing strategy, especially for connecting with tech talent we had not previously engaged with. It's given us a steady stream of technical candidates, making it easy to keep in close contact with each candidate and provide timely feedback,” says Talia Inerjit, Talent Acquisition Administrator.
Saving hiring time
When your business is 2000+ people in size with many stakeholders in the hiring team, any time you can save in the process quickly adds up. The team was able to speed things up in several ways on OfferZen:
Active job-seekers
Developers are checked for job-seeking intent before they join the platform and it’s made clear on their profiles what they’re looking for in their next role:
“OfferZen helped achieve a commitment upfront in the hiring process,” says Talia. “The platform's detailed candidate profiles also significantly reduce sourcing time, ensuring we can focus our efforts on candidates that match our requirements.”
“We found the response times a lot quicker than some other platforms, for example. The candidates have put themselves out there and are actively looking for work,” says Megan Fitzell, Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist.
Efficient communication
The team found it easy to communicate with one another and candidates:
“Everything is centralised and you don’t have to take it out of the platform. There is also great visibility within the team, other stakeholders can easily see communication and there’s no duplication of communication. If somebody from the team goes on leave, we’re also able to pick up things in their absence and not let candidates wait,” adds Talia.
Given that the team had 300 vacancies across the globe at one point, having this centralised platform for sourcing where multiple users could be added fit in well with their sprint strategy for recruitment, according to James. “It was a massive aid when we had a high volume of roles.”
Other features that saved the team significant time:
- The option to save their job searches and easily adapt them
- Weekly alerts for candidates that match their roles
- The side chat feature to ping other team members was simple and intuitive to use
- Visibility on whether candidates are in a process with other companies, to judge how fast they need to move with any given candidate
A cost-effective hiring plan
To make their hires, Derivco used an Unlimited hiring plan where they could hire as many developers as they needed at a fixed cost. With this plan, they saved approximately R3m compared to traditional recruitment agency fees.
“We avoid recruitment agencies as much as we can because they carry so much cost. With OfferZen’s subscription model, the value is that we have an agreed price for a year. We could have a huge spike in hiring needs, and we could use OfferZen as we need to find and engage those people,” says James. “It’s a nimble and cost-effective type of model for our hiring volumes.”
The results
Besides saving on hiring costs, Derivco has hired more than 45 technical experts on OfferZen.
“We’re a long-standing tech company, traditionally based in South Africa and stretching into more and more markets. OfferZen has been great for our growth, especially in South Africa. The partnership has helped us raise our employer brand as well as stay agile when it comes to looking for the talent that we need,” says James.
The developers they’ve hired also speak to finding a great fit as part of the team at Derivco:
“Working on the latest and greatest technologies, building and maintaining software for online gaming with clearly defined products and projects really excites me,” says Siphesihle Dube, Software Developer.
The interview process on OfferZen was painless, too:
“With Derivco, there was always someone on the other end of the line to help guide the process. It gave me a good idea about the company's culture, what kind of people they valued, and the sheer scale of the challenges they deal with is what really got me excited,” says Giovann Adonis, Software Engineering Manager.
Are you hiring software developers? OfferZen is the curated developer hiring marketplace that connects job-seeking developers with exciting opportunities at over 2000 companies in Europe and Africa.
Hiring teams can make unlimited hires across all the roles on OfferZen, saving up to 50% compared to traditional recruitment costs.